with(out) you
by IWantYouInMyLife
Summary: It takes Tony more time than he'd care to admit to notice that not once had Strange said that the place they needed to go back to was Earth. In fact, he never said it was a place at all.


**Author's Note: Hello, there, beautiful people. I'm back, only this time with another MCU one-shot,** **but — but! — it's Tony/Peter. Since Civil War and Homecoming I've been hooked on the intricacies of their relationship, however, when I saw Infinity War… there are no words to describe how badly I wanted to cry when I saw that scene. It was heartbreaking, and I'm yet to recover. Enough to say that I want to fix it seven ways into Sunday — therefore, here it is, me fixing it!**

* * *

**The Last Day**

Tony wails.

His arms, still raised, ache at the uncomfortable position, muscles trembling with the effort required to maintain the hug — only there's nobody there, and his hold grips only at the dust still settling onto the ground below. It's a useless gesture, much in the same way all of his previous actions have been, despite his best intentions.

The truth is that Tony's failed. He failed in the only task he had promised himself he would not, under any circumstances, fail.

The weight of his failure crushes at his ribcage, and all at once his breathing falters just as his heartbeat rises, pounding inside his chest so hard it threatens to burst through the muscles and bones preventing it from jumping out of his body.

The words keep on replaying in his mind — whispered softly into his ear, screamed harshly at his face, spat, cursed, and shouted, over and over, endless.

Tony's knees give out, and he falls face forward into the sandy ground, hitting his nose, temple, and cheek, his arm standing on an awkward angle, all because he doesn't shift, doesn't protect himself. He falls. Falls and keeps on falling even when the rocks start digging into his skin, breaking it, drawing blood. Tony's in space, lost on a deserted planet in the middle on a hole in the universe, feeling the loneliness in such an acute way it makes his head spin.

Tony thought he had known what being alone felt like the first time around, when the very foundation of his life structure shifted and shattered — with Obadiah, with S.I, with the attack. The dessert. God, Tony never imagined he would ever feel more alone than when he had laid down onto the hot sand covering that cave, picturing his company, his creations, all being used to kill, to finance the type of war that Tony had then been privy to on a personal, intimate way.

He survives that. Survives with help and sheer force of will, blasting his way open by once more creating a machine, a weapon, only this time with every nerve exposed to the dangers of it, of all the manners in which it could be used for evil. He survives and thinks nothing can ever top that, that surely realizing how disgusting, pathetic, and alienated he truly was can never be topped, no matter if it means flying a missile into space, forfeiting his own life in the process.

It should've worked. For all reasons and purposes, it should've worked. Only his own creation starts to poison him, killing Tony inch by inch, slowly enough for him to feel every ache and pain, but not enough to buy him time to find a solution. It's painful on a new level. Not the notion that he'll die — not that, never that. Tony wanted to live, but he could've come to peace with his death if it hadn't been for such a ridiculous reason. He wasn't dying on the battlefield, saving people, doing something, leaving a mark, making a difference. Tony was getting poisoned by the piece of engineering keeping him alive, his enormous genius not enough to find a solution on the timeframe he had.

And it had been worse. So much worse than the cave, if only because that time he was surrounded by the life he had chosen for himself, with the people he loved watching as he slowly deteriorated to death, losing his sanity with each passing day, his treacherous mouth sewn closed despite the desperation clawing at his insides. He wanted to scream, and shout, and kick, and cry, and weep, and mourn, and drown in his own sadness, angry, mad, _furious_ at his demise.

Then Pepper died in front of his eyes. She came back, sure, but first, she died, carving a hole in his already bruised and beaten chest, stealing his breath, and showing Tony that the worst pain he could ever face was not the one done to him, but to those he loved. Dying was no longer his fear, the fabric weaving his nightmares, painting the pictures that locked his heart between one beat and the next. The fragility of humanity exposed Tony to the absurd possibility that he might outlive someone he couldn't live without.

It was madness.

Tony believed that to have been his ten. His limit. The maximum of pain he could withstand while still having something resembling sanity to cling to. He could deal with whatever, only it seems that fate keeps on sweeping the rug from underneath his feet, mocking him each time he considers himself above the notion of despair, laughing while Tony tries to find his footing in the middle of the chaos.

He had been so wrong. So pitifully, pathetically, ridiculously wrong that it borderlines ignorance — something Tony despises above all else and prides himself in not partaking. None of that had been a ten. Not even a seven-point-eight, not nearly a five, not close to being on the same scale, the same measure, the same numbers. Tony wants to relieve each devastating part of his life a thousand times over, pushing the useless rock to the top of the mountain before letting it roll back down, much like Sisyphus, for all of the eternity, if it means that this moment, right then and there, will have been a strange nightmare, an illusion created by the evilest of gods.

Anything. Tony wants to trade his very soul if it means erasing the last hour from existence.

God.

Peter.

Peter Parker.

Peter.

Spider-Man.

Peter.

_Peter._

No.

Not him.

It should be impossible, and yet...

There's a movement to his left, and a voice comes from somewhere over him.

"Get up, Stark," Strange orders, but it's without even a hint of concern, so Tony ignores it. Get up to go where, anyway? To spend god knows how long fixing that goddamn ship and go back to Earth, to face the remaining of humankind as a failure? "Get up. Now."

Strange starts to tug on his arm, probably losing his patience with Tony's lack of response, and Tony would get annoyed with the insistence; only he's too busy suffocating on the despair, the agony, the loss of billions, trillions of lives. He won't move, won't go anywhere besides the very ground he's lying on, and who knows, maybe we'll luck out, and death will catch up to him.

"We do not have the time for this, Stark. Get up right now, or I'll haul you up myself," the fucking wizard demands, kicking the armor. "We need to go back."

Go back? Why would he? Going back means facing the damage done to the planet he loves, means seeing who survived and who vanished in a puff of air, means dealing with the situation and implies a certain degree of acceptance that Tony simply cannot muster.

He much rather remains where he is, half the suit on, half off, facing the rocks and sand, contemplating the terrible life choices he had made which lead to that moment, while he waited for the comeuppance that was surely heading his way if the universe had any sort of logic.

Which was doubtful.

If the universe had logic in the first place, then Peter would've never been taken. Not Peter. Not when he had been one of the few decent, honest, brave, intelligent, worthwhile people alive.

And now he's gone.

_Shit._

Tony doesn't understand. It should've been him.

If he could swap places with Peter, he would do so in a blink of eyes, no questions asked. Easy. It wouldn't take a single second of consideration. However, if those weren't the cards, if this is the way things were meant to happen, then why couldn't Tony have been taken as well?

It takes Tony more time than he'd care to admit to notice that not once had Strange said that the place they needed to go back to was Earth. In fact, he never said it was a place at all.

* * *

**Eight Months Later**

The illusion is so real it borderlines surrealism. The details are all there, creating the perfect picture, constructing the scene Tony has spent so many seconds, minutes, days, months, eternities waiting, hoping beyond hope, wishing despite his better sense.

Peter is there, standing still in his doorway, an indescribable look on his face. He's wearing the Spider-Man suit, all dirty and bruised, looking exactly the same as he had when he vanished from Tony's arms. Perfect. Peter seems perfect, and Tony holds his breath, afraid of moving the wrong muscle and messing up the illusion, destroying the moment. He doesn't care that it's not real — at least not for the moment. He'll take what he can get and deal with whatever fall out happens afterward, and he'll do it happily.

If there's one vision Tony readily accepts is whichever one Peter happens to be in. So, yeah, he doesn't move, doesn't dare to say a single word, despite the burning sensation in the back of his throat, that could either mean he needs to say a hundred words — all of them variations of apologies — or that he's about to cry a river of acid tears.

It's a gamble, really.

Peter looks equally as dumbfounded, resting on the ball of his feet, his face telling that he is one wrong move away from bolting. Which does seem like the sort of fucked up thing Tony's brain would come up with — obviously he wouldn't conjure an illusion where Peter is actually happy to see him.

It's too much. Even this little contact kills him, dragging a fire down his spine, turning his muscles into jelly, and suddenly staying upright becomes a struggle. Tony tries to resist, but it's impossible. One second he's fine — _he's not, but it's the closest he'll get_ — and the next he's not, 'cause his knees are failing and Tony's falling forward, the room spinning.

This is what finally gets Peter to move, jumping from his place with the usual grace to grab Tony's shoulders and pull him close, his arms wrapping around his waist. It's like a flip being switched inside Tony's brain.

If this is going to go away at any second, he might as well touch, and caress, and grip, and pull as much as he can, to remind himself what Peter feels like. So he does. The very second Peter comes close to steady him, Tony shoves his face into the crook of his neck, inhaling the sweet smell that he'd come to associate with the boy, tears welling in his eyes.

After months of nights where Tony barely closed his eyes, avoiding his dreams like the plague, he contradicts himself, mentally begging to all the deities he cursed at for all this time to take mercy on him now. All he wants it's to never wake up from this horrible — wonderful, so wonderful — illusion.

Weirdly enough, however, the ghost version of Peter — _his_ Peter — speaks. "Mr. Stark," he whispers, much too close to a plead, and it sounds exactly like the tone he had used that day, and it breaks something inside Tony's chest.

Maybe he makes some sort of noise, or he grips too tightly, 'cause Peter pulls, almost placing Tony on his lap, and all but shoves the engineer's face further into his neck with his hand, as though Tony might try to escape. But he wouldn't — not ever.

"I'm here," Peter says, fast. Fast and faster. "I'm here, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here."

And he keeps on going, repeating the same thing over and over again, reciting, then claiming, then promising, then whispering, then begging.

Peter speaks, and Tony weeps.

* * *

**Two Years Later**

Tony looks at the clock hanging at the opposite wall, studying the numbers flashing there. It's been five hours, twenty-eight minutes, a few seconds, and Tony is starting to get restless, feeling the familiar prick of uneasy crawling up his entire body.

Too long, he thinks. It's been too long now. What if something happened?

Shit.

He tries to regulate his breathing, listening with half an ear to the mind-numbing reports the heads of departments were spewing, hoping none of them notices how he's no longer taking anything in, and his mind is lost somewhere else. It takes all of his training to keep himself from flipping the fuck out and trashing that whole room.

God, Peter is okay. He's safe in the lab where Tony has left him, waiting for his return. He's not in danger, he's not gone. He isn't.

_But what if he is?_ A voice in his head whispers and Tony blinks slowly, gripping the arms of his chair. It's a losing battle; Tony's gonna snap.

It's useless to fight against the urge, and he knows it — he needs a plan. Pepper can finish the meeting without him. Honestly, Tony signed over the position of CEO to her, it was unfair that he still had to sit through these meetings, forced to endure the same old crap coming from stupid people trying to impress him.

The moment he decides that _'fuck it,'_ he's gonna leave, no explanation or anything, the door opens, and Peter walks in, all loose hoodie and a Starbucks cup, without even an introduction from F.R.I.D.A.Y.

It's so good to see him that it's painful.

"Hey, Mr. Stark," he greets with a wide smile, stopping just inside the room and leaning against the doorway, promptly ignoring everybody else present. "Think I can steal you for a minute?" His eyes shine with mischief. "I may have a situation in the lab."

Tony grins, his mood doing a whole 180 just like that. "A situation?" He asks, teasingly. "Is my lab still standing, Parker?"

"Sure is, sir," Peter agrees, sipping from his cup. "May not be in a very close future, though."

"Do I need to call the firefighters?" Pepper asks, raising a perfectly manicured eyebrow.

Peter shakes his head. "Nah, we're good."

"Sure," Tony agrees, unconvinced by the kid's performance. Maybe the lab is on fire already.

"May I borrow him?" Peter asks Pepper, not even bothering to pretend Tony had any say on the whole thing. Clearly, they both know Tony is so fucking whipped he's already sitting at the edge of his seat, and not even a negative answer from his CEO will keep him in his place.

"As long as you promise to return him in the same condition," she says, tapping her pen against the folder resting on the desk. "I don't need to remind you that he's a public figure, do I?"

Peter winks at her, and Tony's already getting up, slipping his shades back into place, grabbing the jacket hanging at the back of his seat, and waving goodbye to all the unlucky fellows who'll have to suffer through the rest of that meeting. "Hiya, Pepper. Email me. Or don't — I'll be busy."

She rolls her eyes. "I'm aware. Goodbye, Tony." Then she smiles a little, meeting his eyes with a soft look. "Thanks for coming."

And there's some grumbling around the room at that. They don't understand how unbearable it truly is for Tony to leave the lab long enough to even show up at S.I, let alone for a meeting as long as that one stretched to be, so, yeah, they should count themselves lucky that he had stayed for as long as he had.

So Tony mock-bows in her general direction, grabs Peter's wrist, and gets the fuck out of there, hearing the door slide closed behind them.

He waits until they are out of hearing range. "How did you know?" Tony asks, knowing there's no such possible thing as a spot on coincidence where Peter discovered something just as he was about to have a panic attack.

Peter shrugs. "F.R.I.D.A.Y warned me."

"Wait, did you just admit to having my personal A.I spying on me? For you?"

"Yep," he says, popping the p, not a single ounce of regret.

"I don't know whether to be offended or impressed."

They enter the elevator, and Peter stops moving only when they are pressed together, shoulder to shoulder, not even bothering to pretend to remain at a respectable distance. "Well," he says smartly. "Since I'm not planning on stopping any time soon, it might be better for you to just…"

"Deal with it?" Tony asks, raising an eyebrow at Peter's cheek, trying to go for a stern voice.

It shows pretty quickly that it landed quite far from the target, 'cause Peter nods, tilting his head up to meet his gaze, grinning all the way. "Seems about right."

"You're a menace, kid. That's what you are." He pushes his lips together, hoping to hold back the smile threatening to make its way into his face. "I should give you proper boundaries."

Peter nods again, this time going for _a very serious™_ look. "You really should," he mocks, frowning his forehead and everything.

Tony can help himself. He reaches and cards his fingers through Peter's soft hair, messing up his already distressed look. "One of these days, kid. One of these days."

Not today, though. Not for the foreseeable future, either. Just… one day.

Who knows?

They reach the lab, stepping out of the elevator and going straight to Peter's table. There are at least eight holographic screens open, showing different calculations, all chaos, and Tony's forced to admit that he's been a bad influence.

He ignores that thought. "You finished it?" Tony questions, excited by the possibilities, his mind already going through the new suit he'd be able to build.

"Nah," Peter says, throwing his empty coffee cup in a perfect arc to the other side of the room, managing to hit the trash can without even looking that way. Show off. "I still have to get in touch with T'Challa to buy the Vibranium. Obviously, I was waiting for you."

"Why wait? You know what to order better than I do, in this case."

Peter gives him a look, telling him without words that he thinks Tony's being particularly slow. "It is your money, Tony. A lot of it, actually. I kind of need your okay to go ahead with this."

Only he didn't. "Why?" Tony asks again, sounding too much like a fucking broken record. "F.R.I.D.A.Y's programmed to give you any access you might need."

"Monetary access?"

"No, genocide access," he deadpans, before sighing. "Yes, monetary access. You have to know that; you've ordered stuff before."

Peter sits at his stool, a vibrant red — _Iron Man red_ — leather monstrosity that once almost gave Tony the remaining back problems he still doesn't have. "With you in the room with me," Peter says, and he's frowning now. "Just what kind of access do I have with F.R.I.D.A.Y?"

"Pretty much the same one as I do." Tony shrugs, eyes already going through the math on the screens in front of him.

There's a sharp intake of air. "Wait. Are you for real? What if— what if I decided to take all your money and go?" Peter rambles, his voice pitching high as he blushes. "You shouldn't do that. What the fuck, Tony? I could do shit, you know? What if I did it, hun? Take a bunch of crap — money, whatever — and vanished?"

Tony's eyes slide sideways until they meet Peter's. He's flustered, and there are all sorts of hand gestures going on as he speaks, looking like he wants to convince Tony of something, perhaps that he's an idiot for giving Peter such unlimited permission. Only the word _'vanished'_ reminds Tony of the panic attack he almost had, and how his heart is still beating just the tiniest bit faster than average, and how Tony is pressed so close to Peter their legs are touching.

It's ridiculous, really. After all this time, how can Peter not know?

Tony stops him, grabbing Peter's hand in between his, squeezing it tightly. "Kid, if you vanish, you're already taking everything," he says, leaning down until their foreheads touch, keeping the eye contact, hoping that the message is received this time. Tony's never been good with personal gestures, but it seems crucial to get this one right.

Peter's breath hitches and falters, and they are so close that the puff of air hits Tony's face. "_Oh_," he whispers, sounding amazed by Tony's words, by their meaning, and he crumples, going soft and pliant. "You've been holding out on me." He closes his eyes, leaning closer still, just enough so that their mouths touch, so that this time when he speaks, it's against Tony's lips. "Tony... alright. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Okay."

Okay.

Okay sounds perfect.

* * *

**AN2: Awn, they are so damn cute. Urgh, I can't. Seriously, I want to bite them both.**

**I always get super excited about comments, so if y'all feel like it, do leave your thoughts down below and I'll love you forever! **


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